Vatican Newspaper Article Addresses Condom Use Among Married Couples

Three days before the start of a Vatican conference focusing on "the centrality of care" in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, on Tuesday printed a piece by Spanish theologian Juan Jose Perez-Soba arguing that married couples with one HIV-positive partner "should abstain from sex, because intercourse performed with a condom is, 'from the moral point of view, not a fully conjugal act,'" RNS/Beliefnet News reports (Rocca, 5/24).

Perez-Soba "said that although use of a condom may have some effectiveness against HIV/AIDS contagion in single acts, it cannot guarantee safety -- especially throughout the sexual life of a couple. It is wrong, therefore, to say that condom use can prevent infection, he said," according to the